I haven't had much of an interest in Soccer. I played one season when I was a kid, and all I remember of that season was the one time, when playing goalie and given the instruction 'Be Aggressive'... I tackled a kid.

So, I'm coming into a round with the entertaining Football Manager 11 with a bare bones knowledge of the sport. It's touted as absurdly deep and realistic, and I can agree thus far on the 'deep' part.

As far as realistic, well... it seems so. I created my manager as an Unemployed American with the minimum experience ("Yeah, I played soccer that one time back in, uh, you know."), and spent the first year basically getting rejected for jobs.

Yeah, that was pretty much my entire first season, starting in December of '09. Around the beginning of 2010, I decided to uproot my dude and live in Germany. Got a secondary nationality, and got the added realism of having my manager speak the languages I actually speak (English, Spanish, German). That, and there are more low-league clubs in Germany. The US is dominated by MLS, and I just was NOT going to get a job hanging around with no experience hoping Sporting KC suddenly wanted to hire some schmuck off the street.

Sometime around June of 2010, I was approached with a job offer.

Woo! Kind of amusing that my early high point after about a couple of hours with a football management sim was actually getting the opportunity to manage football.

Erm. The offer was for a 'Premier League' team in Iceland. The semi-pro team Valur Reykjavik was offering me 400 bucks a week. I haggled them up to $500 and took the job. Moving to Iceland.

Valur was sporting a pitch that allowed for the grand attendance of 2000 fans, 500 of whom could actually have seats. Condition was 'Very Bad'. Basically, a field of Icelandic tundra with some bleachers.

I made a few decent signings, but for the most part relied havily on my staff ("Hjalmar, what is 'You Suck' in Icelandic? Okay, go tell Bjornsson that.")

The first few months involved a great deal of pointing and saying 'Hey, you!'.

I was running a base 4-1-2-1-2 that suited my squad fairly well. The only major holes were one of the D slots, and a revolving door at GK up until actually the last match of the season, when the Hot Prospect 17 year old kid I'd scouted out of Denmark came in and offered up a shutout in his first match.

Valur finished the season 5th, and came dangerously close to winning some big matches. The cup semifinals match against the then-ranked #1 club went into overtime.

I brought in four or five very solid foreign players, although it didn't go well. The kid I brought in from Mexico as well as the older player from Ireland were both on leaves of absence by the end of the season (Reason: Bascially being depressed from having to live in fricking Iceland). My starting striker was from Camaroon. No-racist, but he was pretty easy to spot out on the pitch in an Icelandic Semi-Pro match. Many a match disintegrated to a game of 'Pass it to/Keep it from the black dude'.

At the end of the season, the Valur board (Whom I had managed to convince to overhaul the stadium. Now it supported -4000- fans!) expressed their happiness with my performance, looking forward to the second year of my two-year contract.

Then, I applied for a 3rd league position back in Germany. This leaked to the press, and one of the reporters I'd been a bit short-of-patience with brought this tidbit of information to my board. I received a nasty e-mail from them telling me I had the choice of maintaining my reputation and resigning immediately, or being subjected to an ugly public firing and running out of town.

I resigned.

I didn't get the German job.

Now I'm back to sitting around on vacation and applying to any and every job that comes by! Woo!

I'm kind of surprised to find myself recommending a sports management sim in which I've spent MOST of my playing time unemployed, but it is good stuff.

Yeah, it's kind of ridiculous, really. I kind of cruised through the first season, feeling things out, but to give an example...

Take player conversations. Depending on how deep up your players' butts you want to be, you can have a private chat with any player at any time. Take, for instance, one aspect of that -- You can encourage or discourage certain styles of play. You want a guy to take more long shots, or to avoid losing his feet on tackles, or how he takes corner kicks, etc., etc. Depending on the dude's style of play and his personality and what phase the moon is in, or whatever, he's respond by agreeing to try it out, or possibly telling you to stick it. Then you can decide how much you press the issue, then THEY react, then they'll react further depending on how you react to that reaction.

In other words, if you ask a guy to do something and he doesn't feel it fits his game, he could end up gaining respect for you as a manager if you ship his ass for refusing. (Or any number of variations, there.)

Similar stuff with Board Interactions. They'll lose respect for you if you let 'em walk all over you at times (Other owners WANT a doormat manager. See: Jones, Jerry and the late Davis, Al.)

Yeah, US is tough unless you set your experience high. I just picked the leagues speaking the same language as I do -- It's really bulky. Ideally, I'd have ALL the leagues, but I read that even with a super-PC it'll bog down to unplayable after a few game years.

If you want to start at the bottom, be sure to include plenty of low-level leagues that'll be desperate enough to hire you. Then your nationality plays a part (You're not likely to get hired if you're a native of a rival nation, for instance). Plus languages spoken, obviously.

I -think- I'm playing with about twelve nations, something like 25 or 30 leagues?

Landed a job with a club sporting a 12,000 seat stadium. Unfortunately, it's in South Africa. F.C.A.K. hired me. Immediately, a handful of players demanded a transfer. Thanks for the vote of confidence, guys.

Weird/Cool thing about the FCAK contract: They offered me basically an offseason contract. Three months, ending shortly before the games started. Wouldn't budge in negotiations when I tried to extend it through the playing season.

Apparently they liked what I did in the transfer period. Brought in some staff, got the youth squad straightened up a bit, sold off the bitchy players and brought in decent replacements, got younger (We're still the oldest team in the inland stream). They offered a one-year extension after the three month trial period.

Finally figured out how to add customer leagues to the database. Ended up adding several Asian countries along with US, Mexico and the big Euro leagues.

Got a job in a low-level Japanese team (they're ranked 1st in the league) and we've started well in our friendlies. two wins and a draw so far with one more before they count for real.

Trying to add some depth to the team but I have a shoe-string budget and my board refuses to spend money I got an email two Weeks into the offseason that we were financially in trouble but it got cleared up in two weeks.

Trying to make my line-up a 4-3-2-1. So far its put runs in the board. Hoping to find a more consistent goalie... But I don't think my budget will allow it.

I was looking up my batch of South Africans and their history strikes me as entertaining. F.C.A.K. stands for Football Club Aziz Kara, and the club is named for a dude who was banned from the sport for life for 'bribery and corruption'. Yeah. My soccer team is named after a guy who was given a lifelong ban from soccer for being a cheating scumweasel.

Now, it looks like the guy had named the club after himself while still active (Also funny), but still... It's kinda like coaching the Cincinnati Pete Roses.

Now i'm finally realizing how hard this year is going to be. My season starts with the Japanese Emperors Cup with includes all 120 Japanese clubs. I got a "lucky draw" only playing a club in a league that's 4 ranks higher (i'm in the lowest league) and stunned the crowd of 43 people and got a very hard earned win.

Now I face a club in a leave that's 6 ranks higher. My odds are set at 2/9 for a victory and not shot at a tie. Biggest crowd of the year according to the email; 100 tickets have been sold for this match. Can't wait.

Crowd of 43 people, lol. I just had a similar moment in a cup game, pulling off a 2-1 underdog win. Shocked the crowd of 96. Funny thing is, we played that game in our stadium which seats 12,000. Whole game I was watching, realizing, 'Dude... there's NOBODY here.'

Benefits of playing in South Africa: Haven't had to deal with any agents, yet.

Downside of playing in South Africa: Having to regularly send players home for 2-3 weeks for various mystery illnesses I don't want the whole team to catch.

Got my attendance up... I'm in first place right now after 5 games 4 wins 0 losses 1 draw. Through 2 home games I'm attracting 387 fans a game. Problem is half of my team is on a youth contract which means I'll have to start paying them more tha $5/week which will really hurt my depth. I signed 10 guys to my team and they either start or they're coming off the bench. And my team has been in the red for the past two months... but the board likes all my moves and I'm increasing my finance confidence.

I ended up taking away the captaincy from one guy that didn't play well in the preseason and he threatened to walk away. Had to find him some playing time right away.

Right now the two teams that finish in the top-2 get promoted to the 1st Divison. Hope my players can hold out.

Near the end of my first season at Manager for the Arterivo Wakayama's and I've already clinched the regular-season and a promotion to the Kansai League 1 (from the worst league in Japan).

Been tearing up the league. 11 wins against 3 draws in the 8-team double-round robin schedule. My goalie when 274 minutes without giving up a goal until my last match where they got it off the rebound. Unfortunately, suspensions and injuries have made me rely on my unproven babies (the average age of my team is like 16.5 years old).

Hitting the off-season where one player demanded to be transferred so I'm waiting to see what's being offered and another player that's buried in my depth-chart is gonna get loaned out to get more playing time. Every other report is how I'm leaving (team hasn't offered me an extension yet) and how they're preparing to bring in someone if I leave.

My FCAK team is only a handful of matches into the season (Life's been a pain in the ass). Walking into every match as an underdog for some bizarre reason... Last two matches have been won by a combined 9-0.

Sitting solidly at 3rd on the table, though we've beaten #1 and lost by a goal to #2.

The #1 team's manager has been pretty regularly talking smack about me in the press.

The South African leagues are... Erm, different. Finally came across my first RSA agent. Was approached by the guy touting his middle-of-the-road client. Wanted about triple what my scouts thought he was worth, as well as a $1000 'agent fee'. Hahaha!

Had another team keep trying to get me to GIVE them my starting Goalkeeper. No, really. Every other week, they're offering a transfer for zero dollars, and a friendly match the following season. ("Hey, give us your goalie and we'll play with you next year once!")

For some reason my contract ran out even though I thought I agreed to a new contract from $400/year to $1,000/year after getting promoted to the Kansai Division One league... hm... If I can't find a decent job I may have to restart an old save file.

Walked into a match against the 1st-ranked Black Leopards (Yeah, yeah) as a 13-2 underdog. The press was referring to it as an 'Easy win' for them. 1-0 FCAK. Woo!

Moved up to second, just a point off the leader, whom we just shut out.

Where's my raise?

Edit to Add: After playing down to a crap team and earning a draw (I went all Bull Durham 'Scare 'em' on my team afterward), I found out in the press conference that my Goalkeeper has a streak of 348 minutes played without a goal scored against him. Okay, so I take back that whole 'You're scum and you suck and should all die' speech for YOU, Brandt.)

Promotion is hurting... I dominated the Kansai League Two handily without suffering a loss through 14 games... but now that I got promoted everyone is saying how I'm in danger of getting regulated. I was given the option to forecast how I'd do in league play this year with the higher the bar, the more money I could spend on salaries... problem is my team is stocked with dudes... not necessarily good guys, but bodies. I need to start filling out my reserve team so they get some playing time.

Also, I advanced to the 3rd round of the Emperor's Cup after getting great draws to face two teams that are actually equal or worse than I am. Even my 3rd-round match-up is a team that's a full league below me.

Right now I've started off with 1 win and 1 draw through two matches. If I can finish in the middle, I'll be happy. Team is on a 18-game streak without a loss.

Football Manager is my life over here i love it.. My record is 14 hours straight play !!

The game is so addictive taking ya team up the leagues to the promised land of the Premier league and play against the likes of Man Utd and Liverpool. Im a Crewe Alex fan and always start with them, we aint a great side but got good young players and always get good money for them.

FM12 is out this Friday over here and i have booked 3 days off work just to play it. Its a superb game.

UK based Seahawks Fan--Media & Communications Director with the UK'sStaffordshire Surge American football Team